Apparently, the top regret is working too much and not following your dreams.

I don’t really have any major regrets, now that I think about it. I try working smart vs working hard (not that I’m a lazy ass), love my friends and family and always make time for them, and am pretty happy with everything, really. And I’ve been lucky enough to do things I want, and try out many new experiences, for which I’m very grateful to you, life!

Today I’m taking a day off PokiesPokies from work, and going surfing to make my little summer dream come true. It’s not guaranteed I’ll be good at it, or will love it, but I know I’ll be happy I tried.

An update: I went, and I did it, was able to ride almost every wave, and loved every second of it! Came back home exhausted as hell, but with a huge grin on my face. I’ll share a bit of surfer wisdom that I heard from an instructor today:

Surfing is like life: you never know what kind of wave you will get, and sometimes you’ll catch it and sometimes you’ll tumble, but the main thing is to keep at it, enjoy it, and have fun.

As of 2012, five out of the last seven presidents have been left-handed. Counting as far back as Truman, the number is five (or six) out of twelve. In the 1992 election, all three major candidates – George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot – were left-handed

Now, I’ll have to take sis and other left-handed people more seriously… What if they are to become the next president, you just never know.

I got an email from a good friend Suzanne the other day, asking if I could chat with a Computer Science (CS) student about a career in technology, and I happily agreed – I can talk about technology for hours and hours! And I’d love to be able to help someone who is just starting out.

Kate, who is pursuing her CS degree, got in touch with me and sent me a list of questions she had before our chat, which helped me understand where she wanted to focus our conversation. We had a 30-minute phone call, and covered everything in her email, and I got to know her a bit better and hear her concerns. With Kate’s permission, I wanted to share the recap, in hopes that other people starting out in the technology field will find it useful.

Thank you, Kate, for asking great questions, and can’t wait for you to join the exciting tech community soon!

Q: What drew you to this field and how did you decide it was right for you?

A: I’ve always loved it! Must be partly engineering genes from my mom and dad who both have technical degrees. When I was three I could name all of my dad’s radio electronic parts, then was constantly reading puzzle books, then later begged my parents to get us a computer in exchange for good grades. I originally learned how to operate computers in MS-DOS command line, and skipped computer classes in school because I thought I was smarter than the teacher (shameful, but true).

Getting a CS degree was one of the best decisions that I made (thanks mom for telling me PR was bullshit – confirmed by experience later). I enjoyed my college years immensely, and let me tell you, the school was hard, very hard at times. But it was well worth it, and now it just feels like second nature to me to code and lead technical projects.

If you’re good at solving tech problems (and yes, love math) – definitely go for a CS degree/career in technology.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for someone like me who isn’t that confident when it comes to programming – maybe ways to improve at programming or tech careers that don’t focus as heavily on it?

A: Man, C++ is hard for anyone! Honestly, it was pretty tough to learn C++ and assemblers in school for me too. Good thing is that there are so many other languages and platforms out there (node.js, python, mongodb) that bring fun into coding. And aside from programming, there is a huge need for smart people who grasp technology: information architects and UX designers, community evangelists, talent managers, quality engineers… You can specialize without being a coder.

Q: What skills (technical or non-technical) and personal characteristics would you say are most important to have for a person working in your field?

A: Creativity, curiosity to always learn – as technology constantly evolves, and ability to communicate is crucial, especially when it comes to translating a technical concept to a broader audience. Well, plus being a kind and fun person always helps in any field :)

I am still trying to improve on all of the above, every single day.

Q: Do you have any other advice? Is there anything I didn’t ask about that you think is important for a computer science student to know?

A: This is a great closing question – I think I will borrow it for any informational interviews, because it’s perfect for asking anyone who has more exprertise in any field.

Some of the tips that I had:

write more, keep a journal or a blog and document your thoughts, challenges and victories. It helps improve writing communication skills, lets you see your progress over time, and may be very useful to like-minded folks and future employers. Best developers are also great communicators (Paul Graham, Jeff Atwood, Marco Arment, Jeff Escalante, Lea Verou)

embrace tech community – NYC is amazing when it comes to tech events, meetups, classes and hackathons. You can always learn something new and meet with smart people. I especially like the NY tech meetup – very fun and inspiring monthly meeting in quick demo format, all made in NYC!

doing things is the best way to learn. Try out new technologies (JavaScript alone can keep you entertained for months), work on something you would use and release it online. Sometimes things seem harder than they are, until you actually start doing it, step by step. Then suddenly your app is working – and you feel like the world is at your fingertips :)

A: She’s on her own, she cleans people’s homes, she’s incredibly nice. She brings flowers every time she cleans, and she’s just respectful and nice and awesome. Why can’t more people be like that? She’s been Viagra doing Viagra it some twenty-odd years, and that’s just an incredible success story. To me that’s far more interesting than a tech company that’s hiring a bunch of people, just got their fourth round of financing for 12 million dollars, and they’re still losing money. That’s what everyone talks about as being exciting, but I think that’s an absolutely disgusting scenario when it comes to business.

What do I think about women in tech? I think theyexist. And so do men. I propose we give them all a new name: human in tech. And move on.

Complaning and whining rarely solve an issue. Assholes and jerks (of both gender) exist in every industry. So let’s take them down by being better than them, and move on to doing amazing things, in tech and elsewhere

What do I think about having it all? I think one has to realize it’s impossible to have it all, unless you’re god (in which case I’m willing to bet you don’t exist). Pick things that are important to you, be it money, career, megayacht, family, teaching kids to read, as long as it’s a finite list and you feel confident you can do it. Then do it. Have everything on your list, be happy.